For all you young (& older) women with pert firm breasts that have yet to endure a mammogram...

MAMMOGRAMS
Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following exercises, you will be totally prepared for the test and best of all, you can do these simple exercises right in and around your home.

EXERCISE ONE:

Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast in door. Shut the door as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn't effective enough.

EXERCISE TWO:

Visit your garage at 3AM when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off all your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tyre of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat with the other breast.

EXERCISE THREE:

Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the bookends against one of your breasts. Smash the bookends together as hard as you can. Set up an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again.

YOU ARE TOTALLY PREPARED!

AND, just a thought for all the women out there...MENtal illness, MENstrual cramps, MENtal breakdown, MENopause...Ever notice how all of women's problems start with men?...And when we have real trouble it's HISterectomy!

Send this to all women to have a laugh AND, don't forget to have a mammogram!

1. Not too ugly
2. Doesn't drive off until I'm in the car
3. Works steady - splurges on dinner out occasionally
4. Nods head when I'm talking
5. Usually remembers punch lines of jokes
6. Is in good enough shape to rearrange the furniture
7. Wears a shirt that covers his stomach
8.. Knows not to buy champagne with screw-top lids
9. Remembers to put the toilet seat down
10. Shaves most weekends

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 52)

1. Keeps hair in nose and ears trimmed
2. Doesn't belch or scratch in public
3. Can tow a Caravan
4. Can cook a BBQ
5. Doesn't re-tell the same joke too many times
6. Appreciates a good TV dinner
7. Helps with the housework

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 62)

1. Doesn't scare small children
2. Remembers where I have put things
3. Can still tow a van without causing chaos on the road
4. Only snores lightly when asleep
5. Remembers why he's laughing
6. Is in good enough shape to stand up by himself
7. Usually wears some clothes
8. Doesn't notice my facial hair and wrinkles
9. Remembers where he left his teeth
10. Stops trying to tell jokes

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 72)

1. Breathing.
2. Doesn't miss the toilet.
3. Remembers where we both live.

When did hirsuteness become so unacceptable?
Beth Wilson ponders why we loathe our follicles.

I'M READING the biography of Rufus Wainwright, There Will Be Rainbows. I'm not so much interested in Rufus who, talented though he is, is far too young to have a biography written about him. I'm more interested in his family, the wonderful McGarrigle sisters Anna and Kate (sadly, Kate died recently) and his father, musical satirist Loudon Wainwright III. Loudon, who had only one hit record, Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road), is quoted in the book as saying: ''I was in love with Maria Muldaur … She was the first woman I ever saw who didn't shave under her arms. I remember at the Newport Folk Festival 1963 looking up around the fence and seeing the Kweskin Jug Band. She was 23 years old. Had this shirt on with nothing up her arms and she kinda leaned up to scratch her head and I saw this … incredible tuft of black hair. Aaargh. Most erotic thing I ever saw in my life.''
So what has happened since 1963? Why has body hair come to be seen as such a problem? Girls and women, and increasingly men, are paying huge amounts of money to denude themselves of all body hair. A cameraman told me his friend, who is in his late 30s, has ''never been with a woman who had any hair on her body''. Treatments to remove hair include creams, buffers, shaving, lasers, IPLs and waxing. Most treatments hurt like hell and many clients are burnt and scarred. They also inflict deep wounds on purses and wallets.
Media images of the perfect woman, hairless, curve-less, airbrushed and artificial, have been influential in making women dissatisfied with their bodies. The deluge of beauty propaganda begins with children, and I don't think Barbie ever revealed any short and curlies.
Roberta Honigman and David Castle in Living with Your Looks document how body image is adversely affected by idealised figures of beauty in the media. Body image is described as ''the picture of the size, shape and form of our bodies that we see in our mind's eye''. While it might be considered ''normal'' to be concerned about our body image, contemporary Western society seems obsessed with trying to achieve physical perfection and this in turn distorts body image.
Ironically, while women are being told to remove body hair, balding men are being urged to replace it. Back in 1991, dermatologist Peter Berger warned in his book Skin Secrets: ''Artificial hair implantation is another method which I, however, strongly discourage. It consists of single synthetic fibres being implanted into the scalp using a fine needle. Each 'fibre' has a loop at the end around which tissue grows because of the irritation it causes, thus holding the ''hair'' in place. The problem with this method is that an allergic reaction to the artificial fibre is usually set up in the scar, resulting in inflammation, infection and frequently scarring around the fibre.'' Other surgical methods of hair transplantation are more successful, but are also expensive and painful; a fruitless fight against ageing and, frankly, plugs look like plugs.
During the Christmas break I was walking with a friend in his 60s and a seven-year-boy named Liam. Liam was prattling away happily as children do, skipping over a number of subjects, when he suddenly said to my friend: ''You've got a comb-over. My dad says comb-overs always look ridiculous. My dad says if you're going bald and you don't like it, you're better off just shaving your head.'' Fair comment, Liam.
A beautician once told me she had given ''Sally'' a complimentary Brazilian as a wedding present. Sally had never previously had any hair removed from her body. When the beautician uncovered Susie's lower body she screamed, ''What have you got down there? A dead possum?'' The offending pubes were vanquished and who knows what happened on the honeymoon. While the beautician's intentions were well meant, perhaps Susie's new husband wouldn't have minded and might have loved her just as she was. We'll never know.
When I was a youngster learning about sexuality I read, in one of those sex manuals, that body hair is an extremely sensitive transmitter of sexual sensation. Susie dipped out on that score too.
When did hair become so loathsome? Remember the 1970s rock-musical Hair, which celebrated political activism and sexual revolution? Could it be that today's society can't handle the eroticism that Maria Muldaur's sleek, hairy underarms generated in Loudon Wainright III all those years ago? Lady Gaga, on the other hand, would be even scarier if she sported a bit of groin kelp or hairy armpits. Have we been conned by the advertising industry and capitalism into denouncing our own sexuality? Perhaps someone should write a radical rock musical called Hairless. Nah, doesn't do anything for me.

One day a man was walking along the beach and found a bottle. He looked around and didn't see anyone so he opened it. A genie appeared and thanked the man for letting him out.

The genie said, "For your kindness I will grant you a wish, but only one."
The man thought for a minute and said, "I have always wanted to visit Hawaii but have never been able to because I'm afraid of flying and ships make me seasick. So I wish for a road to be built from here to Hawaii."

The genie thought for a minute and said, "No, I don't think I can do that. Just think of all the work involved: the pilings needed to hold up the highway, how deep they would have to be to reach the bottom of the ocean. Think of all the pavement that would be needed. No, that is just too much to ask."

The man thought for a minute and then told the genie, "Well, there is one other thing that I have always wanted. I would like to be able to understand my girlfriend. What makes her laugh and cry, why is she temperamental, why is she so difficult to get along with? Basically, what makes her tick?"

The genie considered for a few minutes and said, "So, do you want two lanes or four?"

A typical bloke, having split from his latest girlfriend, decided to take a holiday. He booked himself on a cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank.

He found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts. After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident on a snowy, cold Monday morning; it's a bad one. Both of their cars are totally demolished, but amazingly neither of them is hurt. God works in mysterious ways